U.S. delays arms shipments to Israel amid Rafah tensions

The Biden administration is delaying the sale of at least two arms shipments to Israel amid mounting concern about the country’s plan to expand a military operation in southern Gaza that could dramatically increase the conflict’s death toll, said four people familiar with the matter.

The White House and State Department declined to explain the decision, but it is the first known instance of a delay in U.S. arms transfers since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack into Israel that killed more than 1,200 people.

Since then, the United States has surged tens of thousands of bombs and missiles to its ally even as huge swaths of Gaza have been turned to rubble and the death toll among Palestinians has ballooned to more than 34,000, many of them women and children, according to local health authorities. President Biden has described the bombing as “indiscriminate,” but he has been reluctant to leverage weapons transfers to try to force a change in Israel’s behavior.

One U.S. official described the move as a “shot across the bow” intended to underscore to Israeli leaders the seriousness of U.S. concerns about the offensive in Rafah, where more than 1 million displaced Palestinians are massed in camps near Gaza’s border with Egypt.

The Israeli Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One of the delayed shipments pertains to a commercial sale of 6,500 Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which convert free-fall “dumb bombs” into precision-guided weapons, said people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive arms sales.

The other sale pertains to a shipment of small diameter bombs, said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, the quantity of which is unclear. Though both deals are suspended, they could be completed in the future, officials said. Some elements of this story were reported earlier by Politico, the Wall Street Journal and Axios.

None of the weapons were expected to arrive in Israel soon, a White House official said.

When asked about the delays, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller declined to offer a rationale but said that U.S. support for Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas remains intact.

In Washington, U.S. military support for Israel receives overwhelming support from Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and powerful pro-Israel interest groups including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is spending tens of millions of dollars this election cycle to unseat Democrats it views as insufficiently pro-Israel.

On Tuesday, Republicans assailed news of a delay in weapons approvals as a “reprehensible” betrayal. “The United States must stand with Israel. Period,” said Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.)

But outside of Washington, Biden has come under significant criticism for his staunch support for Israel from rank-and-file Democrats, including Arab American voters in key swing states. As conditions in Gaza have worsened - with the spread of famine and lack of medical care - protests have erupted across college campuses and Biden has been met with jeers and howls from pro-Palestinian protesters at numerous campaign events.

Biden told reporters last week that student protests have not forced him to change his Gaza policy, but U.S. officials have made clear their view that an Israeli offensive into Rafah, a key transit point for aid, would be disastrous.

On Monday, Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about his administration’s concern.

“The president doesn’t want to see operations in Rafah that put at greater risk the more than a million people that are seeking refuge there,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

A day earlier, Netanyahu rejected calls to halt the war in Gaza, saying “If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”

“I say to the leaders of the world: No amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself,” he said.

The State Department has said an incursion into Rafah would “dramatically increase the suffering of the Palestinian people, would lead to an increase in loss of civilian life, would dramatically disrupt the delivery of humanitarian assistance … the great majority of which is coming through Kerem Shalom or Rafah and is being distributed inside the Rafah area,” said Miller, the State Department spokesman.

Netanyahu appeared closer to a point of no return Tuesday as Israel Defense Forces announced it had taken control of the Gazan side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, marking its first ground incursion into the southern Gazan city.

U.S. officials remain hopeful that a hostage deal that includes a cease-fire can forestall a full-scale Israeli invasion but those prospects became bleaker with the start of the Israeli operation.

Negotiators “should be able to close the remaining gaps” between Israel and Hamas, Kirby told reporters. “Everybody is coming to the table,” including delegations from both Israel and Hamas, Kirby said of talks being held in Cairo.

Asked how Hamas’s insistence that any cease-fire be permanent could be reconciled with Israel’s position that it would agree only to a temporary pause in fighting to secure the release of hostages, Kirby said: “I really don’t want to get into talking about the specific parameters.”